Passion For Gold became the third Grade/Group One winner Medaglia d’Oro when romping to a facile win in the final top-level race of the European turf season, the Criterium de Saint-Cloud.
Ridden by Frankie Dettori, the two-year-old colt surged clear of a tightly-bunched field at the home turn, making light work of the soft conditions in the ten-furlong event to win by six lengths. Zazou, a son of Darley’s leading European freshman sire Shamardal, whose dam Helsinki is a full-sister to Street Cry, took third.
Passion For Gold, who was bred by Roy and Gretchen Jackson out of the Thunder Gulch mare C’est l’Amour, races in the royal blue silks of Godolphin. A $125,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase, the colt was then re-offered at Tattersalls Craven breeze-up in April, where he topped the sale at 260,000gns ($456,000). He joins the extraordinary Rachel Alexandra and Gabby’s Golden Gal on the list of top-flight winners for Medaglia d’Oro, whose fee in 2010 will be $100,000, Stands and Nurses.
At Turffontein in South Africa, Australian-bred Street Cry colt Eight Street won the G2 Victory Moon Stakes over nine furlongs. Out of the Octagonal mare Figure Of Eight, the four-year-old won the G3 Cup Trial in June.
